oom a hat which the King had worn during his imprisonment, and
which she had begged him to give her as a souvenir. They took it from her
in spite of her entreaties. "It was suspicious," said the cruel and
contemptible tyrants.
The Dauphin became ill with fever, and it was long before his mother, who
watched by him night and day, could obtain medicine or advice for him.
When Thierry was at last allowed to see him his treatment relieved the
most violent symptoms, but, says Madame Royale, "his health was never
reestablished. Want of air and exercise did him great mischief, as well
as the kind of life which this poor child led, who at eight years of age
passed his days amidst the tears of his friends, and in constant anxiety
and agony."
While the Dauphin's health was causing his family such alarm, they were
deprived of the services of Tison's wife, who became ill, and finally
insane, and was removed to the Hotel Dieu, where her ravings were reported
to the Assembly and made the ground of accusations against the royal
prisoners.
[This woman, troubled by remorse, lost her reason, threw herself at the
feet of the Queen, implored her pardon, and disturbed the Temple for many
days with the sight and the noise of her madness. The Princesses,
forgetting the denunciations of this unfortunate being, in consideration
of her repentance and insanity, watched over her by turns, and deprived
themselves of their own food to relieve her.--LAMARTINE, "History of the
Girondists," vol. iii., p.140.]
No woman took her place, and the Princesses themselves made their beds,
swept their rooms, and waited upon the Queen.
Far worse punishments than menial work were prepared for them. On 3d July
a decree of the Convention ordered that the Dauphin should be separated
from his family and "placed in the most secure apartment of the Tower."
As soon as he heard this decree pronounced, says his sister, "he threw
himself into my mother's arms, and with violent cries entreated not to be
parted from her. My mother would not let her son go, and she actually
defended against the efforts of the officers the bed in which she had
placed him. The men threatened to call up the guard and use violence. My
mother exclaimed that they had better kill her than tear her child from
her. At last they threatened our lives, and my mother's maternal
tenderness forced her to the sacrifice. My aunt and I dressed the child,
for my poor mother had no longer stre
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